Anne Spencer was a poet, a civil rights activist, a teacher, librarian, wife and mother, and a gardener.

More than thirty of her poems were published in her lifetime, making her an important figure of the black literary and cultural movement of the 1920s—the Harlem Renaissance—and only the second African American poet to be included in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1973).

In addition to her writing, Spencer helped to found the Lynchburg Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was also the librarian at the all-black Dunbar High School, a position she held for 20 years. Here she supplemented the original three books by bringing others from her own collection at home, as well as those provided by her employer, the all-white Jones Memorial Library. She spent much of her time writing and serving on local committees to improve the legal, social, and economic aspects of African Americans’ lives.

Amidst the troubled, segregated times in which she lived, Anne Spencer sought refuge in her garden and in the cottage, Edankraal, which her husband Edward built for her in the garden behind their home. The name Edankraal combines Edward and Anne and kraal, the Afrikaans word for enclosure or corral. Here she could lose herself in her flowers and creativity, and work into the wee hours of the morning.

The results of Spencer’s contemplative time in her garden and the cottage garnered her literary success as well as regard from the intellectual community of the 1920s. The Spencer home on Pierce Street became a salon for many intellectuals who visited regularly, and for African American travelers, who found hospitality at the Spencer home when laws of segregation barred them from hotels.

Biographical Overview:

Anne Spencer was born Annie Bethel Scales Bannister to Joel Cephus Bannister and Sarah Louise Scales on February 6, 1882, on a farm in Henry County, Virginia. Both parents were of mixed lineage. Her father, born a slave in Henry County in 1862, was of black, white, and Seminole Indian ancestry. Her mother was born about 1866 on the Rock Spring Plantation in Critz, Virginia in neighboring Patrick County. According to Spencer's biographer J. Lee Greene, Sarah Louise Scales was born to her mother who was a former slave and her father a wealthy Virginia aristocrat, “well known in American aristocracy.”

Soon after Spencer was born, the family moved to Martinsville, where her father opened a saloon. Within a few years, the parents separated, and her mother took Annie to Bramwell, West Virginia, where she eventually placed Annie in the foster care of William Dixie and his wife, a prominent black couple. Then, in 1893, seeking formal education for her daughter, Scales enrolled the eleven-year-old Annie in the Virginia Theological Seminary and College (now Virginia University of Lynchburg).

Although Annie left Bramwell barely literate, when she graduated six years later in 1899, she delivered the valedictory address. While in school, Annie had met Edward Alexander Spencer of Lynchburg, a fellow student, who tutored her in math and sciences while she helped him with languages. Edward would later become Lynchburg's first parcel postman, which he combined with his other entrepreneurial talents in construction and business. Anne and Edward married in 1901 and two years later moved into the Queen Anne style home Edward had designed and built for them at 1313 Pierce Street.

The couple had three children*: Bethel Calloway, Alroy Sarah, and a son, Chauncey Edward. Later there were ten grandchildren, and the Pierce Street home was expanded and enhanced to receive and accommodate their frequent visits.

Chauncey Spencer was an important figure in his own right as a pioneer aviator, a career proudly encouraged by Anne and Edward Spencer. His flight suit and his story are part of the Black Wings Exhibit in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. and the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame. His retirement home at 1306 Pierce Street, also a Virginia Historic Landmark, is across the street from his childhood home. Click here for more information.

Anne Spencer died at the age of 93 on July 27, 1975 and is buried alongside her husband Edward, who died in 1964, in the family plot at Forest Hills Cemetery in Lynchburg.

The house and garden were designated a Virginia Historic Landmark in 1976, and also a Friends of the Library USA Literary Landmark, and a Historic Landmark by the Association for the Study for Afro-American Life and History. The Spencer House and Garden is included on the National Register of Historic Places.

Anne Spencer's papers, books and photographs are archived in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. A small collection of her papers were collected from Carl Van Veckten after James Weldon Johnson's death and are held in the collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven. CT. Papers, photographs, and documentation concerning the restoration of the Spencer garden are in the possession of the Southern Memorial Association at the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia.

*Anne and Edward Spencer had three children, ten grandchildren, and fourteen great grandchildren:

Independent African: John Chilembre and the Origins, Settings and Significance of the Nyasaland Native rising of 1915. Shepperson, George, and Price, Thomas. Edinburg, Scottland:University of Edinburg Press. (1958)

"Coal Country: The Rise of the Southern Smokeless Coal Industry and Its Effect on Area Development, 1892-1910."Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (1971)

TheNorton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ellman, Richard, and O'Clair, Robert, eds. NY. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. (1973) Note: Anne Spencer was the first Virginian and first African -American woman to be included.

Yale University, The Carl van Vechten Collection, Collection of American Literature. The Beinecke rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Yale University, James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, Collection of American Literature. The Beinecke rare Book and manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven Connecticut.